Cultural Landscape in World Heritage Conservation and ... · the cultural landscape, especially where the associative values of the landscape reside within those communities. Although

3M. Rössler & R. C.H. Lin

Cultural Landscape in World Heritage Conservation and Cultural Landscape Conservation Challenges in Asia*

Mechtild Rössler and Roland Chih-Hung Lin**

World Heritage Centre, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Paris, France** Corresponding author: [email protected]

ABSTRACT UNESCO was the first United Nations agency to deal with landscapes at a global scale, notably through the World Heritage Convention. In 1992, ‘Cultural Landscapes’ became a new category on the World Heritage List combining works of nature and of humankind: cultural landscapes often illustrate a specific relation between people and nature and can reflect techniques of sustainable land use, fostering strong links between culture and sustainable development. Initiatives such as the UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize highlight outstanding examples of safeguarding activities at the world’s major cultural landscapes and offer opportunities to share good practices and create synergies. Cultural landscapes face numerous threats across the world, and especially in Asia, with its growing infrastructure development and urbanisation. This article shares some of the knowledge and experience garnered by UNESCO through its conservation and management activities at cultural landscapes in Asia (Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, Bhutan, Silk Roads heritage corridors) and highlights the urgent need for a cultural-historical-natural territory approach to address the pressing challenges for the conservation of Cultural Landscapes in Asia. Finally, the article advocates for a strong focus on the peoples and communities that inhabit these territories and their involvement at all stages.

KEYWORDS cultural landscape, World Heritage, conservation, management, Asia, Bhutan, Bamiyan, Silk Roads

Received July 25, 2018; accepted August 8, 2018.

Cultural Landscapes and World HeritageUNESCO was the first United Nations agency to deal with landscapes globally, through normative instruments such as the 1962 Recommendation concerning the safeguarding of the Beauty and Character of Landscapes and Sites, and the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (hereafter World Heritage Convention). The latter is a unique international legal instrument, which brings together the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. It recognises the way in which people interact with nature and integrates perspectives for sustainable development in its implementation. While the term ‘sus-tainable development’ did not exist when the Convention was developed at the time of the first UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972) it is enshrined

in the Conventions concept of the transmission of the world’s outstanding heritage to future generations.

Cultural landscapes, defined as the ‘combined works of nature and man’1, bear witness to a long and intimate relationship between people and their natural environ-ment. Whether found in urban or rural settings, they are the results of diverse human-nature interactions and thus serve as a living testimony to the evolution of human so-cieties. In 1992, the World Heritage Committee, at its 16th session, included ‘cultural landscapes’ as a category for inclusion on the World Heritage List. Referring to Article 1 of the World Heritage Convention, it acknowledged that some landscapes are designed and created intentionally by people while others evolve organically over time. In some cases, the evolutionary process is ‘fossilised’ in material form (such as those found in prehistoric sites and land-scapes left by the people who created them), while others continue to evolve and play an active role in contemporary society (such as cultivated terraces). Some cultural land-scapes are considered sacred, especially in places where

* Disclaimer: the authors are responsible for the choice and presentation of the facts contained in this article and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily the views or stated policy of UNESCO and do not commit the Organisation.

BUILT HERITAGE 2018 / 3 4

people possess powerful cultural, religious and often ancestral associations with their natural surroundings. Three main categories of cultural landscapes are defined in Annex 3 of the Operational Guidelines for the imple-mentation of the World Heritage Convention (UNESCO 2017): landscapes designed and created intentionally by people (garden and parkland landscapes constructed for aesthetic reasons, often associated with religious or other monuments); organically evolved landscapes (result-ing from an initial imperative and having developed into their present form by association with and in response to the natural environment); associative cultural landscapes (demonstrating powerful religious, artistic or cultural as-sociations of the natural element, rather than material cul-tural evidence).

Organically evolved landscapes fall into two sub-categories: relict (or fossil) landscapes, when an evolu-tionary process came to an end at some time in the past, leaving behind significant distinguishing features that are still visible in material form; continuing landscapes, which retain an active social role in contemporary soci-ety, closely associated with traditional ways of life, and in which the evolutionary process is still in progress while still exhibiting significant material evidence of its evolu-tion over time (Table 1).

Cultural landscapes often reflect specific techniques of sustainable land use, taking into consideration the characteristics of the natural environment, and illustrate a specific spiritual relation between people and nature. The protection of cultural landscapes can also contribute to modern techniques of sustainable land use and help maintain or enhance the landscape’s cultural and natural values. The continued existence of traditional forms of land use supports biological diversity in many regions of the world, and the protection of these traditional cultural landscapes is therefore helpful in maintaining biologi-cal and cultural diversity, which in turn has enhanced the

quality of life and wellbeing of people. To date, 106 out of the 1,092 World Heritage properties are cultural land-scapes, representing about 9.7% of the World Heritage List (and including four transboundary properties and one delisted property).

Cultural Landscape Conservation Enhancing Cul-ture and DevelopmentThe link between culture and development has become part of an international debate, well beyond World Heritage. The future we want, and what type of develop-ment we want to advocate, was the main focus of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2015. This represented a major change, as culture had not been part of the discussion on development in previous decades. Today, the importance of culture is acknowledged and is at last considered a driver and enabler of sustain-able human development.

Linking culture and development leads to an overall different approach to development, more focused on a ter-ritorial approach rather than a purely sectorial approach. This means that the specificity of an area, a territory or a landscape will be taken into consideration. Furthermore, by focusing on the territory or the landscape, one is bound to focus on people, communities and their wellbeing.

Cultural landscapes are illustrative of the diversity of interactions between humankind and its natural environ-ment over time, under the influence of the physical con-straints and/or opportunities. Landscapes are also valued within the 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, and more recently in the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL). Landscapes are also at the centre of UNESCO Programmes such as Man and Biosphere (MAB) and

Cultural criteria of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the World Heritage sites

Categories of cultural landscapes

(i) masterpiece Designed landscapes

(ii) interchange of human values

Living and/or relict cultural landscapes(iii) exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilisation

(iv) type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape

(v) traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use;

(vi) associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works

Associative cultural landscapes

Table 1 Three categories of cultural landscapes and the cultural criteria of Outstanding Universal Value (Source: UNESCO).


Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and are a focus of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Furthermore, on 19 November 2015, the 20th Gen-eral Assembly of the States Parties to the World Heritage Convention adopted a policy on the integration of a sus-tainable development perspective into the processes of the World Heritage Convention. The overall goal of the policy is to assist States Parties, practitioners, institutions, communities and networks, through appropriate guid-ance, to harness the potential of World Heritage proper-ties and heritage in general, to contribute to sustainable development and therefore increase the effectiveness and relevance of the Convention whilst respecting its prima-ry purpose and mandate of protecting the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties. Its adoption represents a significant shift in the implementa-tion of the Convention and an important step in its his-tory. Furthermore, the General Assembly of States Par-ties already adopted in 2007 a Climate Change Policy as climate change has been a recurring conservation issue affecting the World Heritage properties around the world. This policy is currently being updated.

Importance of Conservation and Management for Cultural LandscapesToday, many cultural landscapes are under threat. In some places, they are degrading due to unplanned infrastruc-ture development and urbanisation, modernisation of land use techniques, pollution, civil unrest or unsustain-able tourism. In other places, especially in rural areas, they are abandoned or lack people to manage them, due to depopulation, ageing populations, and changes in tradi-tional ways of life and knowledge systems. In addition to human-induced factors, increasing disaster risks and the impacts of climate change are posing new and intensifying threats to cultural landscapes around the globe.

In order to safeguard the world’s cultural landscapes facing such threats, it is important to raise awareness of their values, while enhancing people’s capacity to sus-tainably manage them in a site-specific manner, bearing in mind that each landscape faces different challenges. Furthermore, mechanisms should be developed in order to support local communities, who are custodians of the landscapes and their values. The work must be shared by all stakeholders who are the direct or indirect beneficiaries of cultural landscapes, in order to ensure that cultural landscapes remain socially, economically and environ-mentally viable for local communities.

Conservation Challenges for Cultural LandscapesSome particularly important issues stand out in the man-agement of cultural landscapes and require specific poli-cies to help retain heritage values. The following can be expected to occur in the management of many World Heritage landscapes, although they may vary depending on the category of cultural landscape and its social and economic environment:a. Lack of awareness of, and general education about,

World Heritage values in cultural landscapes and their value to society;

b. Need for site-specific training for those working at World Heritage cultural landscapes, to ensure that all values are managed with care;

c. Using farming and forestry policies to define what changes can be permitted in the landscape while main-taining its OUV, and what techniques can be used to this end;

d. Managing tourism to ensure continuing visitor access to and appreciation of the landscape without seriously impacting on the OUV;

e. Finding the resources, including ‘user pays’ concepts and other external income, to ensure the economic vi-ability of operations to maintain the values of the cul-tural landscape;

f. Developing landscape conservation treatments and new techniques to manage essential components in the designated landscape and allow the insertion of new elements (buildings, structures, earthworks, planta-tions…) and new uses;

g. Coping with the impacts of processes, events or devel-opments external to the site which affect or threaten the integrity of the designated cultural landscape;

h. Support communities to retain heritage values within the cultural landscape, especially where the associative values of the landscape reside within those communities.Although each landscape faces different challenges,

some principles to safeguard the world’s cultural land-scapes against threats have been identified, based on ex-tensive study and experience:• Principle 1: People associated with the cultural land-

scape are the primary stakeholders for stewardship;• Principle 2: Successful management is inclusive and

transparent, and governance is shaped through dia-logue and agreement among key stakeholders;

• Principle 3: The value of the cultural landscape is based on the interaction between people and their environ-ment, and the focus of management is on this relation-ship;


• Principle 4: The focus of management is on guiding change to retain the values of the cultural landscape;

• Principle 5: Management of cultural landscapes is inte-grated into a larger landscape and territory context;

• Principle 6: Successful management contributes to a sustainable society.The joint recognition of cultural and natural values

is key for the conservation and management of cultural landscapes, as it highlights the complex interaction be-tween people and the environment. For sites with cultural and spiritual values, it is important to also protect ecologi-cal and biodiversity values; in agro-forest systems, food, medicinal plants, building and production materials must be adequately protected; and at land/territory sites, the long-term sustainable system must be adapted to living conditions. In 2011, at its 35th session, the World Heritage Committee approved the World Heritage Capacity Build-ing Strategy; one of its main strategic objectives is to bring together cultural and natural heritage practitioners to en-courage exchanges and raise awareness of the work carried out in these two sectors of conservation practice. Since then, the World Heritage Capacity-Building Programme was developed by ICCROM and IUCN, in consultation with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS. As a result, several new training courses have been estab-lished around the world, with partners in every region, in-cluding universities, category 2 centres under the auspices of UNESCO and UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs.

Since 2002, UNESCO has been collaborating with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in the framework of the Globally Important Agri-cultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) programme, ‘remark-able land use systems and landscapes which are rich in globally significant biological diversity evolving from the co-adaptation of a community with its environment and its needs and aspirations for sustainable development’2. Although it is not directly involved, UNESCO is support-ing the Satoyama Initiative (or Socio-Ecological Produc-tion Landscapes and Seascapes – SEPLS), a global effort to realise societies in harmony with nature by promoting the sustainable management of SEPLS for the benefit of biodi-versity and human well-being.

Additionally, the Nature/Culture Journey, a joint ini-tiative by IUCN and ICOMOS supported by the World Heritage Centre, promotes effective conservation by in-tegrating nature and culture—which is also one of the key characteristics of the World Heritage Convention—and encourages heritage practitioners to rethink how natural and cultural heritage are interrelated, and how

to build synergies across different fields and sectors3. UNESCO strives to promote this integrated approach, as it is only through concerted, joint cooperation with all stakeholders, and especially the professional community involved in shaping our physical landscape, that we can we hope to meet our common objective of promoting sus-tainable development for future generations. This is why UNESCO highly encourages national authorities and rele-vant stakeholders to continue ‘ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations’ of inscribed properties, as stated in Article 4 of the World Heritage Convention, and to ‘adopt a general policy which aims to give the cultural and natu-ral heritage a function in the life of the community and to integrate the protection of that heritage into comprehen-sive planning programmes’, as stated in Article 5.a4.

On this basis, the emphasis must be on a better rec-ognition of natural values in cultural landscapes and cultural values in natural World Heritage sites and on the use of local, national and international expertise in land-scape management. It is also important to encourage inte-grated approaches and interdisciplinarity (including tan-gible/intangible heritage) and to further develop concepts surrounding human/nature interaction. Case studies and good practice cases, demonstrating excellence in conser-vation, using cultural diversity, supporting agro-diversity will also help yield further results. To further sustainable development, UNESCO encourages research on specific cultural landscapes and mixed sites, along with case stud-ies on the implementation of the 2015 Policy for the In-tegration of a Sustainable Development Perspective into the Processes of the World Heritage Convention. With regard to the Sustainable Development Goals, it is impor-tant to review the sustainable use of cultural landscapes, including traditional practices of sustainable land-use. Additionally, it is important to share experiences between heritage practitioners, World Heritage-related category 2 centres, and the UNITWIN network of heritage-related UNESCO Chairs.

UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes In order to shed light on the importance of cultural land-scapes, the UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri Interna-tional Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes was created in 1995 to reward out-standing examples of action to safeguard and enhance the world’s major cultural landscapes. The Prize, supported by


the Greek Government, bears the name of Melina Mer-couri, a former Minister of Culture of Greece and a strong advocate of integrated conservation5.

The Prize is awarded to those who have made a signifi-cant contribution to the safeguarding, management and enhancement of cultural landscapes, including individuals, institutions, other entities and non-governmental organi-sations (NGOs). Ten cultural landscapes were awarded the Prize between 1995 and 2011, with three honourable men-tions and three special mentions (Table 2). These cultural landscapes represent various types in urban and rural con-texts, ranging from designed to agricultural landscapes, open-air museums to battlefields. They exhibit both tan-gible and intangible values, including memories attached to these landscapes. All of them are evolving over time and still play active roles in society, while people maintain harmonious relationships with their surrounding envi-ronment. The Prize has contributed to raising awareness of the importance of integrated conservation and of the safeguarding of landscapes as a whole, and some of these landscapes were also subsequently successfully inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Managing cultural landscapes is not an easy task, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Maintaining harmo-nious relationships between people and nature requires a holistic approach and consolidated efforts by many stake-holders, including local communities. The UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safe-guarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes can provide a unique opportunity to promote the importance of integrated conservation at the landscape level, as ad-vocated by Melina Mercouri, which continues to increase its relevance and importance today. The Prize can also provide a platform to collect and share good practices and create synergies. In turn, this will further support activi-ties to safeguard and conserve cultural landscapes, which can contribute significantly to sustainable development and thus to the achievements of the goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Figure 1).

Supporting cultural landscape conservation initiatives to promote the importance of integrated conservation and sustainable management of cultural landscapes can con-tribute significantly to sustainable development, and thus to the goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable De-velopment. Such projects contribute particularly to attain SDG 11, and in particular Target 11.4: ‘strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage’ (Table 3).

Cultural Landscape Conservation Challenges in Asia To date, 25 World Heritage properties in Asia and the Pa-cific are cultural landscapes, representing about 9.6% of the region’s 259 properties. The past decades tell a fasci-nating story of how the interpretation and implementation of the World Heritage Convention have evolved, along with the very concept of heritage: our approach to herit-age has become more holistic, taking social, economic, environmental, and technological factors into considera-tion. The recognition of cultural landscapes has been an-other major result of this evolution (Luengo and Rössler 2012, 7). The 25 World Heritage cultural landscapes in Asia span a spectrum from cultivated terraces on lofty mountains to gardens and sacred places. Each of these is unique and testifies to the creative genius of people, social development and the imaginative and spiritual vitality of humanity, proving that cultural landscapes form a core part of the collective identity in Asia.

In both Asia and Europe, painting has strongly influ-enced not only the perception of the landscape but also

Figure 1 Cover page of the promotional brochure of the UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes (Source: UNESCO).

1


Year Laureates Country Characteristics of the cultural landscapes

1999

Elishia’s Park, Jericho Palestine

• Oasis landscape grouped around the spring in the heart of the arid Judean desert, charac-

terised by orchards, palm groves, banana plantations and other diverse tropical plants

• Rich in a history that goes back to the Bible

Valle de Viñales Cuba

• Traditional rural landscape dominated by the cultivation of tobacco but also featuring

pre-colonial and post-colonial architectural riches

• The living landscape makes up a part of the Cuban collective imagination

• After receiving the Prize, the site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in December

1999

The Open-Air Art

Museum at PedvaleLatvia

• A private institution founded in 1992 placed at the heart of the Abava Valley, a nationally

protected area

• The museum is part of rural landscape and is playing an active social role to protect the

natural environment, while promoting national traditions and arts

In addition, three honourable mentions were awarded to Mount Huangshan (China), Jardín del Príncipe de Aranjuez (Spain) and

Muskauer Park (Poland and Germany), and a special mention was awarded to the Leucade salterns (Greece).

2001

Murdjadjo Djebel,

Planters’ Wood and

Old Town of Sid

Hourari

Algeria

• Urban landscape which includes an historical centre of great architectural importance as

well as green spaces popular among the inhabitants

• Actions taken for the restoration of buildings and conservation of semi-arid vegetation in

Planters’ Wood

Lygra Heathland

Centre Norway

• Situated on the island of Lygra in a Norwegian fjord

• Actions taken in cooperation with local farmers to recreate the heathland coastal land-

scape against threats including the abandonment of certain cultural practices and in-

creased forestation

2003 Park of Koga Japan• Designed landscape with a mixture of old and new elements, while maintaining close

relationship with the natural environment

2005The historic village of

Maymand

Islamic

Republic of

Iran

• Agro-pastoral landscape at an altitude of more than 2,200 meters in an arid area, where

sheep-raring is a major activity while nuts and fruits trees are grown around small oases

• The site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2015

2007Borodino Battlefield

Russian

Federation

• Part of rural landscape with Russian traditional wooden villages

• After the destruction by the Borodino Battle in 1912, three factors contributed to the

emergence of a cultural landscape: a natural process, an economic revival and actions in

favor of a memory emergence

In addition, a special mention was awarded to the Grand Bassin (Ganga Talao) (Mauritius)

2011

Museum-Reservation

of GarniArmenia

• Historic landscape with built heritage from the Bronze Age, to Hellenic times, as well as

early Christian elements

• Measures taken to preserve its cultural heritage, while integrating the work into the lives

of local communities, encouraging social and economic development

Battir Cultural Land-

scape Palestine

• Agricultural landscape characterised by complex irrigation system to supply water to dry-

stone terraces

• The site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2014 (at the same time listed on List

of the World Heritage in Danger due to the state of conservation of the site)

In addition, a special mention was awarded to Wadi Hanifah (Saudi Arabia)

Table 2 Previous laureates of the UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes (Source: UNESCO).


Table 3 Relevance of safeguarding and management of cultural landscapes to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Source: UNESCO).

2.4Ensure sustainable food produc-tion system and implement resilient agricultural practices

6.6Protect and restore water-related ecosystem

8.9Promote sustainable tourism that create jobs and promotes local cul-ture and products

11.4Strengthen efforts to protect and safegauard the world’s culture and natural heritage

12.2Achieve the sustainable manage-ment and effiecient use of natural resources

13.1Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disaster

14.214.7

Sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems

15.1, 15.2, 15.3 15.4, 15.5

Ensure the conservation, restora-tion and sustainable use of terres-trial and inland freshwater ecosys-tem and their services

2.4Promote peaceful and inclusive so-cieties for sustainable development

the words used to describe it, which often developed at the same time. Chinese painting focusing on mountains and waters (shan and shui, giving the Chinese word for landscape painting, shan shui) widely developed in the 11th century under the Song dynasty and later influenced Korean painting and Japanese printmaking (ukiyo-e) (Mi-chell, Rössler and Tricaud 2009, 17). While this article does not focus on the semantics, etymology, or termi-nological discourses surrounding cultural landscapes6, it must be emphasised that, within the Asian context, the

understanding of landscapes has evolved from using the landscape—be it natural or man-made—to seeing the landscape—not limited to the pictorial aspect of a terri-tory, nor understood to mean only a portion of land or territory which the eye can comprehend in a single view—to the interpretation and representation of the landscape, and finally to our growing focus on conservation, man-agement and monitoring of the landscape.

In spite of international philosophy, action and conser-vation efforts on cultural landscapes, there was some con-fusion in the Southeast and East Asian context concerning the term ‘cultural landscape’ until it became ‘increasingly accepted, not least with the inscription of various Southeast and East Asian cultural landscapes on the World Herit-age list’ (Taylor 2009). Although, in China, evidence of the oldest protected landscape is the Nine Bend River, Mount Wuyi (Wuyishan) where, in 748 AD, the Tang Emperor, Xuan Zong, issued a decree forbidding fishing and the fell-ing of trees on this very beautiful stretch of the river and limiting construction to religious buildings. This prohibi-tion has survived continuously to the present day (Michell, Rössler and Tricaud 2009, 17). In this regard, Chinese scholars have contributed positively to the international discourse on cultural landscape (Shan 2009; Han 2010; Wu 2011). They contend that the concept of cultural landscape has synergy with the Chinese traditional value of harmony between culture and nature and provides a useful tool—theoretically and practically—to bridge the culture-nature binary (Han 2010). Local Chinese practices of managing heritage landscapes have not been irretrievably submerged under what Winter refers to as ‘a blanket of a technocratic, scientifically oriented language of global heritage’ (Winter 2014, 134). Based on concepts that shape the meaning of cultural landscapes and Zhang’s doctoral research (Zhang 2017), it is important to explore to what extent, if any, the understanding of cultural landscapes varies between Chinese tourists, heritage experts, government officials and international heritage agencies (such as UNESCO or ICOMOS). In their recent paper, Zhang and Taylor argue that the meaning of cultural landscapes is multi-layered in the Chinese context, for example with Chinese tourists ex-ercising agency and engaging in a sophisticated way with meanings they perceive in the cultural landscape (Zhang and Taylor 2018). These Asian discourses complement the classic definition of a ‘cultural landscape’ by the geographer Carl O. Sauer: ‘The cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape is the result’ (Sauer 1925) (Table 4).


No. Name of the Property States Parties Category* OUV CriteriaYear of

Inscription

1Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the

Bamiyan ValleyAfghanistan C (i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(vi) 2003

2 Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Australia M (v)(vi)(vii)(viii) 1987, 1994

3 Lushan National Park China C (ii)(iii)(iv)(vi) 1996

4 Mount Wutai China C (ii)(iii)(iv)(vi) 2009

5 West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou China C (ii)(iii)(vi) 2011

6 Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces China C (iii)(v) 2013

7 Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape China C (iii)(vi) 2016

8 Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka India C (iii)(v) 2003

9Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a

Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana PhilosophyIndonesia C (ii)(iii)(v)(vi) 2012

10 Bam and its Cultural LandscapeIran (Islamic

Republic of)C (ii)(iii)(iv)(v) 2004, 2007

11 The Persian GardenIran (Islamic

Republic of)C (i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(vi) 2011

12 Cultural Landscape of MaymandIran (Islamic

Republic of)C (v) 2015

13 Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range Japan C (ii)(iii)(iv)(vi) 2004

14 Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape Japan C (ii)(iii)(v) 2007, 2010

15 Petroglyphs within the Archaeological Landscape of Tamgaly Kazakhstan C (iii) 2004

16 Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain Kyrgyzstan C (iii)(vi) 2009

17Vat Phou and Associated Ancient Settlements within the

Champasak Cultural Landscape

Lao People's

Democratic

Republic

C (iii)(iv)(vi) 2001

18 Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape Mongolia C (ii)(iii)(iv) 2004

19Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain and its surrounding sacred

landscapeMongolia C (iv)(vi) 2015

20 Tongariro National Park New Zealand M (vi)(vii)(viii) 1990, 1993

21 Kuk Early Agricultural Site Papua New Guinea C (iii)(iv) 2008

22 Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras Philippines C (iii)(iv)(v) 1995

23 Singapore Botanical Gardens Singapore C (ii)(iv) 2015

24 Chief Roi Mata’s Domai Vanuatu C (iii)(v)(vi) 2008

25 Trang An Landscape Complex Viet Nam M (v)(vii)(viii) 2014

Table 4 List of the World Heritage Cultural Landscape in Asia and the Pacific (Source: UNESCO).

* C: Cultural World Heritage property; M: Mixed World Heritage property.

If we analyse the Statements of OUV of World Heritage cultural landscapes in Asia, we find that they are in line with the World Heritage Committee’s Decision to include ‘cultural landscapes’ as an option for heritage listing prop-erties that were neither purely natural nor purely cultural in form (i.e. ‘mixed’ heritage)7. An analysis of keywords in these important texts for the 25 World Heritage cultural landscapes in Asia and the Pacific reveals that words such as ‘cultural’, ‘historical’, ‘indigenous knowledge systems’, ‘production’, ‘religious’, ‘ritual’, ‘sustainable development’,

‘territory’ and ‘tourism’ occur frequently. For decades now, specific reflexion meetings and activities have aimed to address the unique nature and needs of sites bearing witness to indigenous knowledge systems and/or showing religious or ritual aspects, while sustainable development and tourism are the objects of specific programmes at UNESCO and beyond. For example, as early as 1995, a re-gional thematic study meeting on ‘Asian Rice Culture and its Terraced Landscape’ was held in Manila, Philippines, and the Asia-Pacific regional workshop on associative


cultural landscapes was held in New South Wales, Aus-tralia. A UNESCO thematic expert meeting on Asia-Pacific sacred mountains was held in September 2001 in Wakayama City, Japan, while a meeting on Integrated Ap-proaches for Safeguarding Tangible and Intangible Cultur-al Heritage was held in October 2004 in Nara and Yamato, Japan8. More recently, the Workshop on Governance in Protected Areas in Asia was organised in Akita, Japan, in 2011, and the participants agreed that Asian perspectives and traditional Asian values should be effectively incor-porated into the management of protected areas in Asia to strengthen the relationship between conservation and human development. A study was conducted by IUCN experts to review the traditional concepts of protected areas in Asia, especially the relationship between humans and the natural environment from the perspective of Bud-dhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Shintoism and Ani-mistic beliefs, along with existing laws, policies and the governance of protected areas in Asia. The report, ‘Asian Philosophy of Protected Areas’ (IUCN World Commis-sion on Protected Areas 2013) was prepared for the Asian Parks Congress held in Sendai, Japan, in November 2013, and highlights the role and contribution of Asia’s tradi-tional ecological knowledge and of Indigenous and Com-munity Conserved Areas (ICCAs), including sacred natu-ral sites. In this process, the UNESCO Chair on Nature-Culture Linkages in Heritage Conservation was created at the University of Tsukuba, with the objective of becoming a platform for exchange between heritage practitioners dedicated to the conservation of natural and cultural her-itage, notably by developing capacity-building workshops and initiatives for the Asia and the Pacific region9.

Particular emphasis must be placed on the need to re-inforce a cultural-historical-natural territory approach to address the conservation challenges of cultural land-scapes in Asia. As mentioned, this article does not focus on terminology but rather aims to encourage the use ef-fective, value-based conservation and management for the benefit of indigenous peoples and local populations who, as custodians of cultural landscapes, should be involved in the process of researching how the landscape is seen and its history, cultural and natural and territorial values are perceived and have evolved over time. This is in line with the six guiding principles for the management of cul-tural landscape listed above, and especially principles 3, 4, 5 and 6: that the value of a cultural landscape is based on the interaction between people and their environment and the focus of management should be on this relation-ship; that management should focus on guiding change to

retain the values of the cultural landscape; that the man-agement of cultural landscapes should be integrated into a larger landscape and territory context; and that successful management contributes to a sustainable society.

Each cultural landscape could be characterised by cer-tain interactions with the economic, social and environ-mental dimensions, which echoes the discourse about the three pillars of Sustainable Development. These interac-tions must be identified and analysed so that every oppor-tunity to maximise sustainable development benefits can be seized while conserving the heritage values of a World Heritage property. This can be done through trade-offs between various interested parties, with the direct involve-ment and participation of the populations concerned. Cultural landscapes face numerous threats across the world, and especially in Asia, where growing infrastruc-ture development and urbanisation represent significant challenges to their conservation. The last periodic report-ing cycle under the World Heritage Convention identi-fied the following four key conservation and management challenges for cultural landscapes in Asia (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2013): • Values: lack of comprehensive scientific documenta-

tion; lack of understanding and interpretation of ar-chaeological, historical and cultural values; difficulties upholding values;

• Mechanism: lack of legal systems to effectively pre-serve, conserve and manage/monitor properties; issues with the management of threats and change; lack of legal instruments against which the sustainability of development proposals are judged;

• Coordination: lack of inter-ministerial/departmental/service coordination; lack of strong international coop-eration;

• Resources: lack of human and financial resources. The UNESCO Culture Conventions and a series of

international recommendations10 relevant to cultural landscapes could be used as guiding documents, tools and mechanisms for the conservation and management of cultural landscapes. In Europe, for instance, a regional legal mechanism, the European Landscape Convention, was adopted by the Council of Europe (Florence 2000)11. It recognises that the landscape is an essential feature, that it contributes to the formation of local cultures, and that it is a basic component of the European natural and cultural heritage, thereby also contributing to human well-being and to the consolidation of the European identity. In Asia, the lack of any regional or national legal instrument rel-evant to cultural landscapes is one of the key conservation


challenges today, and the need to develop a Landscape Conservation Law (or a Landscape Act) in Asia at the re-gional and national levels must be further emphasised. Such an instrument would be an excellent tool to address the challenges listed above, and the good experience of Japan with its 2008 National Law on the Maintenance and Improvement of Historical Landscape in a Community is an encouraging precedent12.

By using a cultural-natural territory approach taking the evolution over time into account, it is possible to clearly identify the values, attributes and authenticity and integrity of a cultural landscape, whether it is inscribed on the World Heritage List or not. This approach also helps define the tangible and intangible aspects of the proper-ties: the physical footprint of the property, its uses and spiritual, ritual or practical associations. With these ele-ments, it becomes easier to define clear boundaries for the cultural landscape, taking socioeconomic systems into ac-count. Finding the balance between contemporary norms and traditional practices is essential to keep active cultural landscapes relevant in the future, which ties in with ef-forts to ensure that sustainable development practices are in place, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, when it comes to management and governance, in particular, the effective integration of cultural aspects into decision-making processes, notably for development projects. Finally, an essential aspect of the management of cultural landscapes is to ensure the greatest possible involvement of indigenous peoples, local populations and other local stakeholders at all stages of the decision-mak-ing processes.

Three UNESCO Projects and Activities in Asia to Support the Cultural-Historical-Natural-Territory Approach to Cultural Landscape Conservation and ManagementAs mentioned before, this article emphasises the effective value-based conservation and management of cultural landscapes in the Asian context13, from using the land-scape to seeing, interpreting, representing and increasingly conserving, managing and monitoring it. The key values of a landscape territory could, therefore, be assessed through research and documented through the evidence of asso-ciative connections. This geographical approach broad-ened the notion of landscape and made it able to integrate people/nature interactions that were not described so far in terms of landscape. When the World Heritage Com-mittee decided, in 1992, to allow for a new interpretation

of the ‘combined works of nature and of man’, it paved the way not only for a series of new inscriptions, but for a new understanding of a category of heritage (Michell, Rössler and Tricaud 2009, 17). In close collaboration with Asian colleagues who apply cultural-historical-natural territory approaches to address the conservation challenges of cul-tural landscapes, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre contributes to a number of projects, including ‘Supporting the South Asian Cultural Landscape Initiatives: The Expe-rience of Bhutan’ and ‘Preservation of the Cultural Land-scape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley’. Realised in collaboration with the Department of Cul-ture of the Royal Government of Bhutan for the former, and with the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Government of Afghanistan for the latter, these efforts to preserve landscapes in Asia also focus on the wellbeing of people, as cultural landscapes often represent resilient sys-tems, notably when it comes to climate change or agricul-tural diversity. The following three case studies illustrate how a cultural-historical-natural territory approach can be useful to talk about the cultural landscape conservation challenges in Asia.

Supporting South Asian Cultural Landscape Ini-tiatives: The Experience of BhutanBhutan is a mountainous, landlocked, independent nation between China and India. It has a long history and is rich in historic and cultural places, and its living cultural and ritual traditions remain largely intact. The Government of Bhutan has worked closely with UNESCO to put for-ward their first UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, comprising eight sites (four cultural sites, three natural sites and one mixed site)14. In her paper, Pollock-Ellwand describes Bhutan as an inspiration for all heritage con-servationists due to the innovative perspective emerging from the Kingdom of Bhutan (Pollock-Ellwand 2018). There are at least three major heritage contributions this mountainous nation can provide to the rest of the world: first, the belief that cultural landscapes constitute precious and vulnerable assets, which is evident in the Bhutanese dedication to protecting these assets by implementing measured steps, clear processes and effective policies and plans before a resource has been impacted. Second, the fact valued places are ubiquitous and not revealed to us in pockets of significance. Consequently, a whole coun-try can be considered a cultural landscape uniting both natural and cultural dimensions of heritage. Finally, the belief that heritage is the basis of our wellbeing, and that it is wrong to consider that a society’s quality of life should


be measured, as it is commonly done, by a market-based Gross National Product. Bhutan declares that cultural heritage and the consummate value of human identity in one’s place should be the primary concern (Figure 2).

We can also observe many different types of cultural landscapes in Bhutan, such as historical settlements, ag-ricultural fields, sacred mountains, places of worship, spectacular natural terrain valued as sacred places and their environs. Traditionally Bhutan has been regarded as a most mysterious and remote country, hidden in the Himalayas. A complex cultural landscape has evolved in the small nation of Bhutan for millennia. However, re-cently, Bhutan is considered to be one of the most rapidly urbanising societies in Asia, and people in Bhutan have expressed worry about these changes. Over the past few years, a great deal of work has been expended to protect this national cultural landscape and there are on-going efforts to protect the heritage now under threat from, or already irreversibly damaged by, ill-considered develop-ment wrought by rapid urbanisation and infrastructural projects. In the face of these threats, Bhutan as a nation is rising to the challenge. New thinking about heritage has arisen and represents a fresh perspective that could bring insightful innovations to the field of heritage conserva-tion: promisingly, heritage protection is being connected to societal duties, leading to proactive conservation action and to the comprehensive holistic approach that cultural landscapes demand.

Acknowledging that Bhutan is a rare case where almost the entire land has retained a magnificent landscape dis-playing a harmonious co-existence of culture and nature, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre is providing techni-cal assistance to the Department of Culture of the Gov-ernment of Bhutan to make cultural landscapes a focus of heritage protection in the country’s administrative frame-work. Since 2014, a series of the UNESCO-Bhutan Support Cultural Landscape Initiatives workshops, including panel sessions and forums, set up a platform to introduce ‘cul-tural landscape’ as a new conservation concept, along with conserving and raising awareness of its cultural landscapes to gain attention of multiple stakeholders, such as of town planning, agricultural development and tourism15. The cultural-historical-natural territory approach for cultural landscape conservation and management has been pre-sented in order to develop a common vision to sustain the values of cultural landscape, which would be an important indicator of the success of the Bhutanese Gross National Happiness (GNH)16. Through this approach, the concept of cultural landscape conservation and management has

Figure 2 Cultural Landscape of Rinchengang Historic Settlement in Wangduephodrang Dzongkhag (Bhutan) (Source: Roland Chih-Hung Lin).

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been positively received by different sectors within Bhutan. The cultural landscape would be able to remain sustain-able with the same requisites which have been recognised as four pillars to support GNH—sustainable and equitable socioeconomic development, good governance, preserva-tion and promotion of culture and environmental conser-vation, which all the Bhutanese government agencies en-deavour to contribute towards (Figure 3).

Through this approach, the commitment of Bhutanese stakeholders to enhance the conservation and manage-ment of their valuable cultural landscapes has been un-deniable and is best demonstrated by two effective, value-oriented actions: the draft Cultural Heritage Bill of Bhutan and the proposed Cultural Landscape Impact Assessment.

In the draft Cultural Heritage Bill of Bhutan announced in 2016, the entire country is defined as a cultural land-scape from the Preamble onwards: ‘Bhutan’s uniqueness lies in its cultural landscape where tangible and intangi-ble cultural heritage and nature coexist harmoniously’. The text goes on to declare that ‘Bhutan as a whole is rec-ognised for its unique cultural landscape’. This is in line with the developmental philosophy of Gross National Happiness in Bhutan, as the cultural landscape concept seeks to understand and incorporate the socio-cultural values of the people, environmental sustainability, cultural


Figure 3 Four pillars to support the Gross National Happiness (GNH) of Bhutan—all of those are also the critical requirements to ensure the sustainability of the cultural landscape (Source: Mukai 2018).

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preservation and good governance in the planning for future developments. Articles in the bill’s chapter re-garding the protection of cultural elements in a cultural landscape and Cultural Landscape Impact Assessments provide powerful protections through ‘cultural landscape clearances’ for new development applications, which rep-resents a straightforward statement about the significance of the Bhutanese landscape and puts forward a holistic way of looking at the environment17. This draft legisla-tion also identifies ‘cultural landscapes’ as a measurable entity with an integrity that must take precedence over competing land uses. Bhutan has taken into consideration the strong interdependence between environment and spiritual practices, even in the legal and administrative frameworks. While this stipulation does not mean that all cultural landscapes throughout the country are to be pro-tected under the draft Cultural Heritage Bill as a certain category of cultural heritage defined by the Bill, the Bill encourages all parties concerned to acknowledge and safe-guard Bhutanese cultural landscape in their own way.

The draft Cultural Heritage Bill of 2016 in Bhutan does not define cultural landscapes in detail, nor does it provide concrete conservation measures, but it requests the related Bhutanese authorities to develop rules and a regulatory plan to sustain cultural landscapes (Sec-tion 32), in addition to the Cultural Landscape Impact Assessments (Section 37). It is obvious that the Bhutanese cultural landscape is an organically evolved, living land-scape with its society, but it is not easy to cope with these

different types of evolved landscapes. Therefore, Cultural Landscape Impact Assessments proposed by the 2016 Bill may even work on the possible change of the local income generation mechanism together with the physical changes caused by large-scale developments. Such assess-ments should be carried out by people with an in-depth understanding of the spiritual life of local communities, of communal beliefs regarding things beyond daily life, and of a place’s traditional ways of everyday living—in short, in-depth insights on every aspect of Bhutanese culture. The challenge of pairing conservation and development is crucial for the future of Bhutan, not only in terms of cul-tural and environmental preservation but also in socio-economic terms (Pommaret 2016). Cultural landscapes have great touristic value: they can be the base of cottage industries and homestays, but awareness must be raised about this concept amongst the population who should not feel disadvantaged in terms of development opportu-nities or trapped in a time capsule.

Despite the successful process and the good results ob-tained at the four annual workshops/forums, the following main challenges for the cultural landscape conservation and management in Bhutan could be listed as below:• Policy: The large scope of this cultural site/cultural

landscape and its challenging management will require that the institutional framework is further defined; that the stakeholders, their roles and responsibilities are identified more clearly; and that the cooperation between national authorities, ministries, services, local authorities and communities is improved. This will re-quire greater stakeholder consultations and more sur-veying, documentation and coordination efforts.

• Governance: The stakeholders requested further clear recommendations from the Management Plan/Frame-work, including short-, medium- and long-term priori-ties and a timeframe, along with an Action Plan and adequate resources. They also expressed that further operational guidelines and a plan for the allocation of resources for the future monitoring of the conservation and sustainability of the cultural landscape and cultural sites must be formulated.

• Research: Currently, a large buffer zone is proposed to better control visual impacts on the site and to main-tain the values and attributes of the cultural site/cul-tural landscape. The local stakeholders consider the proposed Cultural Sites buffer zone too large.

• Resources: Community leaders showed strong con-cerns about incentives for the villages and inhab-itants, notably regarding (a) income generation


recommendations/guidelines, including Community-based tourism; (b) land use issues, self-efficiency of the community/village; (c) the balance between the use of the natural/cultural resources and the preservation of these resources; and (d) the balance of cultural preser-vation and sustainable development.It is interesting to note here that these four challenges

are generally similar to those faced in the management of other cultural landscapes and in the conservation of cultural sites and efforts to guarantee their sustainable development.

Safeguarding the Cultural Landscape of the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan: Conservation ChallengesThe Bamiyan Valley is most famous for two gigantic statues of the Buddha, carved into the eastern and west-ern ends of a high cliff facing a river. The deliberate de-struction of these Buddha statues and a large number of pre-Islamic objects throughout Afghanistan, in March 2001, shook the whole world. The inscription of the property on the World Heritage List as the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley, at the 27th session of the World Heritage Com-mittee in July 2003, brought recognition not only to the remains of the two Buddha statues, but also to the wider cultural landscape and its position at a crossroad of civilisations. Inscribed under criteria (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) and (vi)18, the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley represents the artistic and religious developments which, from the 1st to the 13th centuries, characterised ancient Bactria, integrating various cultural influences into the Gandharan School

of Buddhist Art. The area is known to have comprised numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuar-ies within the fantastic natural setting of the mountain valleys, and the territory also includes historic sites that document its Islamic period. Placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger simultaneously with its inscription on the World Heritage List in 2003, the property has ben-efited from many conservation efforts, both for archaeo-logical remains and for the cultural landscape as a whole. This case study will focus mainly on the conservation challenges of the Bamiyan Valley Cultural Landscape while eluding the well-debated questions surrounding the archaeological remains as well as the conservation, rehabilitation and possible reconstruction of the two giant Buddha statues and their niches19. This case study was analysed notably by Dr. Roland Lin of UNESCO20, who has assisted the Afghan authorities and stakehold-ers in the identification of long-term solutions for the conservation and presentation of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley World Heritage property and has provided advice of the priority measures to be taken. He was part of the 2010 Advisory Mission to Kabul and Bamiyan of November 2010, together with the experts from ICCROM (Andrea Bruno) and ICOMOS (Jukka Jokilehto) (Lin, Bruno and Jokilehto 2011). UNESCO’s initiatives for the safeguard-ing of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Re-mains of the Bamiyan Valley seek not only to preserve tangible heritage and train local conservation specialists, but also to promote intercommunity mediation, develop intercultural understanding, particularly among young people, and stimulate sustainable economic development for local communities (Figure 4).

Figure 4 The Cultural Landscape and Archaeo-logical Remains of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghani-stan (Source: Roland Chih-Hung Lin). 4


Similarly to UNESCO’s activities in Bhutan, the cul-tural-historical-natural territory approach for cultural landscape conservation and management has been pre-sented in the Bamiyan Valley, with a view to developing a common vision that would sustain the values of the cul-tural landscape, which would be an important indicator of the success for holistic culture for development.

In terms of planning and management, there are essen-tially three master plans in existence for the entire Bami-yan Valley. These include the 1981 Regional Master Plan, which has been revived in 2006; the draft Comprehensive Management Plan, prepared in coordination with Japan and published in 2004, which provides a preliminary zoning proposal and regulations for zoning control; and the Cultural Master Plan, elaborated in 2005 by the Docu-mentation and Conservation Centre of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Universität (RWTH) Aachen and approved by the Afghan Government in 2006. The latter provides a more detailed analysis and documenta-tion of the heritage resources, based on updated satellite mapping. The 2005 Cultural Master Plan is now taken as a guideline for decision-making processes at the regional level, and while the 2004 Comprehensive Management Plan already provided guidelines for the general manage-ment of the area, a new, updated Management Plan was prepared in 2010 by the RWTH Aachen (Lin, Bruno and Jokilehto 2011)21.

Although the Bamiyan Valley has been recognised as a World Heritage cultural landscape, the property con-sists of eight protected components, including the Bami-yan Cliff which contained inter alia the gigantic Buddha statues. Although mentioned in the property’s name, the Cultural Landscape of the Bamiyan Valley is not included in the nominated areas, which only consist of the archaeo-logical remains; the eight inscribed component sites only cover a small part of the cultural landscape. The heritage values of the Bamiyan Valley should be recognised as the combined characteristics that form the cultural landscape as a whole, rather than through its individual features; it should be understood and recognised as a symbolic representation of the larger cultural-natural territory. As clearly described in the conclusions of the meeting on ‘The Future of the Bamiyan Buddha Statues: Technical Consid-erations and Potential Effects on Authenticity and Out-standing Uni versal Value’ (Tokyo, 27–29 September 2017), the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley World Heritage property represents the combined works of people and nature. The Bamiyan landscape is a continually evolving environment, bound

together by complex social practices, traditions and natu-ral systems that have formed a distinctive character and influenced the relationship between the local communi-ties and their environment. Therefore, the OUV of the site is more than its physical attributes; the Bamiyan World Heritage property should be considered a place of collec-tive identity and memory, particularly for the local com-munities; the archaeological remains cannot be separated from their natural and cultural landscape nor from local perspectives.

Through its projects and activities in Bamiyan, based on the Cultural Master Plan and the Management Plan for the Bamiyan Valley, UNESCO has worked closely with the Afghan authorities and institutions, and has emphasised the urgent need to formally define the cultural landscape area as an extended Buffer Zone for the World Heritage property, showcasing the Bamiyan Valley as a continuous, living cultural landscape. Capacity building for local au-thorities involved in the conservation and management of the cultural landscape and the historical and archaeologi-cal remains of Bamiyan should continue, in accordance with the comprehensive policy and strategy.

The cultural-historical-natural territory approach high-lights the importance of traditional water management systems and traditional agricultural areas. Not only are the cliffs important in this valley, but the entire historical-cul-tural-natural territory must be considered when discussing the management, the conservation and development of the Bamiyan Valley cultural landscape. Adopting the vision of an archaeological park, characterised by an effective, value-oriented conservation and management system, appears to be the only holistic way forward for the cultural landscape and cultural territory of the Bamiyan Valley.

Jukka Jokilehto sharply analysed the Cultural Master Plan and the Territorial Master Plan for the development of the Valley, which is currently being developed by an Italian team (Jokilehto 2019 [under finalisation]). These two plans should ideally be integrated into a balanced and efficient planning instrument, considering the entire territory as ‘a coherent whole whose balance and specific nature depend[s] on the fusion of the parts of which it is composed, and which include human activities as much as the buildings, the spatial organisation and the surroundings’22 (UNESCO 1976). The implementation of this planning instrument should be the responsibility of a Management Commission, based on a periodically updated Management Plan. In 2017, the World Heritage Committee expressed concerns that the different plans had not been implemented, noting that while the local


community is now conscious of its heritage, it also requires planning and updated services and infrastructure. As a priority, the current initiatives for the development of a comprehensive urban master plan, based on knowledge of heritage resources and the potential of the territory, must be integrated into a balanced territorial conservation master plan. The present Management Plan should, therefore, be revised, on the basis of this general master plan, and not be limited to archaeological areas alone. It is also essential to integrate these plans with the recognition and safeguarding of the natural environment and existing ecosystems, which are part of the integrity and authenticity of the territory. The remains visible today are the most compelling memorial of the 2001 destruction, and they are the most authentic and prestigious monument for the history of the Bamiyan Valley and its community. Additionally, it is also necessary to care for the remains of the traditional building stock, which still exists in various parts of the territory. These buildings should be surveyed and eventually rehabilitated in an appropriate type of social or cultural use.

One of the key issues for the Bamiyan Valley is the development of infrastructures required by the local population, such as road network, electricity, and water management. In this context, it is highly desirable to have the cultural-historical-natural territory approaches for cul-tural landscape conservation and management, including appropriate protection and development control mecha-nisms. Through its projects and activities in Bamiyan, UNESCO aims to assist Afghan experts to identify and document the cultural landscape’s qualities and charac-teristics, based on systematic research and analysis of the historic territory, its ecosystems and natural features, as well as its human functions and relations over time. The sustainable conservation of this World Heritage Cultural Landscape is not only about safeguarding something from the past: it is also necessary to care for the needs of the community today and plan for the culturally and environ-mentally sustainable development of this historic territory for the future.

Conservation Challenges of Silk Roads Cultural Landscape As the largest cultural heritage routes network in the his-tory of humankind, the Silk Roads present significant potential for inscription on the World Heritage List. Over the past four decades, UNESCO has launched a number of ambitious initiatives aimed at reinforcing dialogue and re-search along the Silk Roads. The Integral Study of the Silk

Roads: Roads of Dialogue (UNESCO 1988–1997) further reinforced the idea of a ‘common heritage and pluralistic identity’. The six volumes of the History of Civilizations of Central Asia (1992–2005)23 and the recent proclama-tion of the ‘International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures’ (2013–2022) emphasise the importance of the Silk Roads, not only as facilitators for the trade in silk and other precious commodities, but also as routes of in-tegration, exchange and dialogue between East and West. The Silk Roads have contributed greatly to the common prosperity of human civilisations, and thus to technologi-cal exchange and the spreading of ideas, values, cultures, knowledge. Today, they reflect how the continuous traffic along the Silk Roads shaped the landscape over more than two millennia. The Silk Roads’ heritage is much more than grand monuments displaying wealth: it also reflects the lives of ordinary people and day-to-day realities, such as the systems of patronage or defence machinery.

Since 2003, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre has played a key role in the coordination of the serial transna-tional World Heritage nomination of the Silk Roads, initi-ated by five Central Asian countries and China. The Silk Roads, which stretch across the length of the Asian con-tinent, possess some of the region’s most outstanding and valuable heritage, and the disappearance of this heritage would be an irreversible loss for humanity. The Silk Roads World Heritage Nomination Project has proven crucial to enhance the efforts for international exchange and co-operation towards the effective and sustainable conserva-tion and management of this shared heritage. Within the framework of the Global Strategy for a Representative and Balanced World Heritage List, adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 1994, State Parties such as China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been working with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre on the serial and transnational nomina-tion of the Silk Roads. In this framework, UNESCO has organised a number of regional and sub-regional work-shops and four meetings of the Coordinating Committee of the Serial World Heritage Nomination of the Silk Roads24. The Coordinating Committee now includes 14 member countries (Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Bhutan as an observer. The UNESCO World Herit-age Centre, in close collaboration with the participating countries and with the support of ICOMOS, has explored the methodological and strategic approaches for the preparation of a serial and transnational World Heritage


nomination of cultural heritage sites along the Silk Roads. During the 2011 Ashgabat meeting, an ICOMOS Silk Roads thematic study was presented, proposing inde-pendent serial transnational nominations in several spe-cific regions of the Eurasian continent, as opposed to one nomination for all of the Silk Roads. This strategy offered a different, more manageable approach for the nomina-tion of complex serial transnational properties, but also led to a number of new management concerns. The par-ticipating countries provided comments and inputs before adopting and setting out the ‘Heritage Corridor’ nomina-tion approach that has been followed by State Parties ever since. The study was subsequently updated and published in 2014 (Williams 2014).

Within the framework of the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust Project ‘Support for Documentation Standards and Procedures of the Silk Roads World Heritage Serial and Transnational Nomination in Central Asia’ (2011–2015), ICOMOS, the International Institute for Central Asian Studies (IICAS - a category 2 centre under the auspices of UNESCO based in Samarkand, Uzbekistan), and the ICOMOS International Conservation Centre in Xi’an (IICC-X) have supported the nominations of two serial transnational nominations for Silk Roads heritage corridors. Consisting of 33 serial components, ‘Silk Roads: The Routes Network of Chang’an–Tianshan Corridor’ was jointly prepared by China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 38th ses-sion of the World Heritage Committee (Doha, 2014) on the basis of criteria (ii), (iii), (v), and (vi)25. The second nomination dossier, which concerned the Penjikent-Samarkand-Poykent Corridor, was jointly submitted by Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and referred back to the States Parties in order for them to strengthen and improve the nomination dossier.

The use of sustained sub-regional cooperation and ongoing international cooperation is currently being replicated in the South Asian Silk Roads (China, India, Nepal and Bhutan) and again in Central Asia ‘Silk Roads: Fergana-Syrdarya Corridor’ (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan). This system has the potential to become a model for capacity building and the prepara-tion of serial transnational nominations worldwide. The following activities related to the Silk Roads World Herit-age nomination(s) are currently ongoing: • The South Asian Silk Roads (China, India, Nepal and

Bhutan; potentially could cover also Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar and Paki-stan);

• A Common Tourism Strategy for the Silk Roads Herit-age Corridor (Central Asia and China, in close cooper-ation with the World Tourism Organisation/UNWTO);

• The Silk Roads: Fergana-Syrdarya Corridor (Kyr-gyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan);

• The ‘Silk Roads Penjikent-Samarkand-Poykent-Merv / Zarafshan Corridor’ (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uz-bekistan);

• The Maritime Silk Roads (initiated by China and other participating countries);

• Mausam: Maritime Routes and Cultural Landscapes (initiated by India with other participating countries).The governments of Japan, Norway, Italy, the Nether-

lands and the Republic of Korea have provided financial contributions through the Funds-in-Trust cooperation with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. China and five Central Asian countries provided in-kind contributions and the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Japanese institutions and the IICC-X provided techni-cal assistance. In 2015, China’s voluntary contribution to the World Heritage Fund aimed at supporting UNESCO’s activities on the Silk Roads. China is actively involved in the Silk Roads nomination process and cooperates with other States Parties, especially in Central and South Asia, as a means of promoting inter-cultural dialogue and ex-changes and to facilitate the rapprochement of cultures. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, the Xi’an Municipal People’s Government, and the IICC-X co-organised several meetings on the serial and transna-tional nomination of the Silk Roads with the World Herit-age Centre, notably in Xi’an, China. A side event on the Silk Roads World Heritage property was organised on 29 June 2018 in Manama, Bahrain, during the 42nd session of the World Heritage Committee.

Although good progress was achieved during the nomination process for Silk Roads serial transnational sites, notably with regard to the identification, documentation, preservation, conservation, management and monitoring of heritage routes and sites, cultural landscapes along the Silk Roads are facing pressing conservation challenges, especially due to the increasing development pressure and proposed infrastructure projects. Through its activities, UNESCO aims to collaborate with various stakeholders to preserve and conserve not only the exceptional monuments and historic urban centres, but all the diverse types of heritage along the Silk Roads: cities and towns; settlements; inns and caravanserai; mining and metalworking centres; irrigation and water management systems; natural features (e.g. mountain passes); shrines


and religious sites; forts and other defensive buildings; petroglyphs; tombs and cemeteries; manifestations of creativity; places that reflect intangible associations and other immovable artefacts which all together form the important cultural-natural-historical territory attributes of the Silk Roads. For the conservation and preservation of the Silk Roads heritage corridors, particularly in the rural villages and the remote areas, the complex topographic, environmental and cultural landscapes face environmental and hydrographic exploitation, which result in major impacts on routes and settlement. It is doubtlessly a challenge to have a comprehensive approach to support all Silk Roads stakeholders in identifying, documenting, preserving, conserving, managing and monitoring the 35,000 km of major heritage routes and the 25,000 km of ‘substantial routes’, covering an total area of 18,000,000 km2 (Williams, Lin and Jorayev 2016) This extensive area is composed of mostly rural villages and cultural landscapes in which people interact with nature, and has strong potential for sustainable development. The issue of boundaries and buffer zones was discussed with stakeholders and the use of GIS modelling facilities was suggested as a means of facilitating work on the national and sub-regional inventories along the Silk Roads. The national and sub-regional inventory systems are important to provide a platform to select sites and recognise the combination of the characteristics, rather than individual features, that form the cultural landscape as a whole (Figure 5).

For example, Bhutan currently has limited documen-tation on pre-17th-century sites, and the identification of specific sites and landscapes would likely take some time. Indeed, there are numerous challenges with regard to de-veloping a Silk Roads historic documentation for Bhutan, the most fundamental being the lack of current research on pre-17th-century archaeology, which makes the identi-fication of heritage routes, sites, monuments or landscapes for inclusion difficult at this stage. Nevertheless, the po-tential is clearly high: modern-day Bhutan occupied a crucial strategic position on the routes both from Tibetan Sichuan and Yunnan (e.g. Tea Horse Routes) and from Tibetan region down the ‘southern valley’ systems (e.g. Salt Routes) to India and Bangladesh. The foundation of early monastic settlements attests to the development of settlement pattern in the fertile valleys of Bhutan that sig-nificantly pre-dates the current monuments26. The Dzongs constructed as part of the unification of Bhutan after 1616 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel were evidently securing existing polities in the important valley systems of western

and central Bhutan. There are some fundamental research issues with pre-17th-century elements of the National In-ventory in Bhutan, not least due to the limited amount of archaeological work and the concomitant problems of understanding early material culture. There is notably a lack of research into ceramics and dating evidence, despite the apparent continuity of material traditions in cooking vessels. The use of metalwork and wood for high-prestige goods and the use of leather sacks for storage, all of which badly survive the test of time, lead to issues with the ar-chaeological records. However, significant quantities of ceramics were recovered during the recent Swiss-Bhuta-nese project, which suggests that it may well be possible to develop a regional ceramic sequence. In the addition, the recently published research on Ogyen Choling demon-strates the complexity of landscapes and heritage routes, and the ability of local studies to begin to understand the development of earlier settlement landscapes (Lin 2016).

The only Silk Roads property on the World Heritage List so far (Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an–Tianshan Corridor, 2014) was inscribed as a cultural prop-erty, as defined in Article I of the World Heritage Conven-tion. According to Annex 3 of the Operational Guidelines, it is also a ‘heritage route’, but is not regarded as cultural landscape (UNESCO 2017)27. Additionally, the absence of management plans for the sites along the Silk Roads heritage corridor and their landscape settings needs to be addressed urgently. Unclear assessments of values, impre-cise boundaries and undefined attributes, the absence of a comprehensive protective legal framework, inappropriate development and infrastructure projects have put the sites along Silk Roads heritage corridor under potential threat, which is especially dangerous at times when development pressures are high in the region. For example, of the eight component sites in Kazakhstan, seven are facing conser-vation challenges due to recent developments and infra-structure projects28.

To address these issues, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, in cooperation with various stakeholders along Silk Roads in Central and South Asia, implements activi-ties around two core priorities: (a) technical assistance for the national and sub-regional inventory of potential sites and capacity building for the relevant stakeholders; (b) advice on how the legislation regarding the conserva-tion of heritage routes, corridors and cultural landscapes could be reflected and/or incorporated into the existing national heritage preservation and conservation legisla-tion. UNESCO also encourages extensive field visits and expeditions in order to ensure that accurate information is


collected by mapping identified heritage sites (cities; set-tlements and traditional water management systems) and that inventories are systematically compiled and recorded for further detailed research. All of this will help create a knowledge-based context for the conservation, promo-tion, and management of cultural heritage and will help document its condition, state of conservation, manage-ment planning, and any notable changes to overcome the conservation challenges along the Silk Roads. It is desir-able to work further with the UNESCO’s cultural land-scapes initiatives and reinforce linkages with the Man and Biosphere (MAB) programme through a landscape and/or eco-system approach, to protect the diverse types of monuments and sites (Figure 6).

To cope with the cultural landscape conservation chal-lenges in Asia, the cultural-historical-natural territory ap-proach might be helpful to provide stakeholders and site managers with assistance when dealing with value-based conservation, policy, governance, research, resources and coordination mechanisms, in keeping with the principles to safeguard the world’s cultural landscapes against threats listed above (and especially Principles 3, 4, 5 and 6) (Mi-chell, Rössler and Tricaud 2009)29. The three cases studies on site-based (e.g. the Cultural Landscape and Archaeo-logical Remains of the Bamiyan Valley), country-based

Figure 5 Pictures and map of the World Heritage property ‘Silk Roads: The Routes Network of Chang’an - Tian-Shan Corridor, China, Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan’ (2014) - not inscribed as cultural landscape sites, but with key landscape components. (Source: Nomination file 1442, UNESCO)

(e.g the project ‘Supporting the South Asian Cultural Landscape Initiatives: The Experience of Bhutan’) and the serial and transnational-level Cultural Landscapes (e.g. Silk Roads heritage corridors) showcase the diversity of interactions between humankind and its natural environ-ment over time, often representing resilient systems in the face of climate change and securing agricultural diversity. There is, however, an urgent need for a comprehensive use of historical materials (photos, maps and research) when identifying cultural landscape values and attributes, and stakeholders are strongly encouraged to highlight cultural values in natural settings, natural values in cultural set-tings. We must work hand in hand with local and national authorities, along with sub-regional platforms, to advocate in favour of cultural landscape conservation and ensure that management takes into full consideration the larger scale of the landscape and territory and ensures its protec-tion, so that the World’s cultural landscapes can be passed on unharmed to future generations.

ConclusionCultural landscapes often reflect specific techniques of sus-tainable land use, taking into consideration the character-istics of their natural environment, and illustrate a specific

Nominated Property:

Buffer Zone:

Total:

42,688.16 ha

189,963.13 ha

232,631.29 ha

5


spiritual relation between people and nature. The pro-tection of cultural landscapes can contribute to modern techniques of sustainable land use and help maintain or enhance the landscape’s natural values. The continued ex-istence of traditional forms of land use supports biological diversity in many regions of the world, and the protection of these traditional cultural landscapes is therefore helpful in maintaining biological and cultural diversity. Cultural landscapes must demonstrate a close interaction between culture and nature, but they also foster strong links be-tween culture and development, which has become cen-tral for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Cultural landscape conservation is a direct reflection of the kind of future we want, and what type of development we wish to see.

As site level, country level and sub-regional transna-tional level, the cases studies have shown different ways of seeing, interpreting, conserving and managing land-scapes in which people interact with nature, and how one can integrate sustainable development perspectives in the management of a cultural landscape. The cultural-histori-cal-natural-territory approach has been shown to be an ef-fective tool to address conservation challenges for cultural landscapes in the region of Asia, especially in view of recent developments, proposed infrastructure projects and chang-ing circumstances over the past decade, particularly along the Silk Roads heritage corridors. There is no doubt that the challenge of sustainably conserving and managing Asian cultural landscapes needs to be addressed urgently. Unclear assessments of values, imprecise boundaries and undefined

Figure 6 Cultural Landscape of Issyk Kul Lake (Kyrgyzstan) along the Silk Roads (Source: Yuri Peshkov).6

attributes, along with the absence of comprehensive legal protection, inappropriate development and infrastructure projects have put Asian cultural landscapes and their OUV under potential threat in these challenging times.

It would be useful for both culture and nature to be considered as drivers and enablers of sustainable human development. By linking culture and nature, culture and development, we encourage a different overall approach to development, more centred on territories than on a purely sectorial approach. This implies that the character of an area, a territory or a landscape must be taken into consideration, which in turn entails a strong focus on the peoples and communities that inhabit these territories.

Notes1. Article 1 of the World Heritage Convention. See also

Paragraph 47 of the Operational Guidelines (UNESCO 2017).

2. The Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme was launched as a partnership initiative by the FAO on the occasion of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002). The GIAHS programme aims to identify, sup-port and safeguard agricultural systems that sustain and conserve biodiversity and genetic resources for food and agriculture, rural livelihoods, knowledge sys-tems, cultures and remarkable landscapes. See http://www.fao.org/giahs/become-a-giahs/selection-criteria-and-action-plan/en/.The Nature/Culture Journey was launched at the IUCN


World Congress in Hawaii (December 2016). Delegates issued a statement of commitment, Mālama Honua – to care for our island Earth (IUCN 2016).

3. At the 19th ICOMOS General Assembly (New Delhi, December 2017), the meeting of the Nature/Culture Journey was the occasion to deliberate on 14 themes between heritage practitioners, academics and policy makers, and the outcome document ‘Yatra aur Tam-manah - Learnings & Commitments released from the Culture-Nature Journey’ demonstrates the possibility of developing sustainable models to protect, conserve and manage natural and cultural heritage and develop policies and schemes for sustainable development (ICOMOS 2018).

4. Article 4 of the World Heritage Convention states that ‘Each State Party to this Convention recognises that the duty of ensuring the identification, protec-tion, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of […] cultural and natural heritage […] situated on its territory, belongs primarily to that State. It will do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources and, where appropriate, with any in-ternational assistance and co-operation, in particular, financial, artistic, scientific and technical, which it may be able to obtain.’ Article 5.a states that States Parties shall endeavour ‘to adopt a general policy which aims to give the cultural and natural heritage a function in the life of the community and to integrate the protec-tion of that heritage into comprehensive planning pro-grammes’ (UNESCO 1972).

5. Approved by the UNESCO Executive Board, the UN-ESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize was renewed at the 202nd session of the Executive Board, in October 2017. One of the major changes is that the Prize has become more open to civil society: nominations are now accepted from international, re-gional and national professional, academic and NGOs active in the field of cultural landscapes, in addition to nominations from the governmental agencies of UNESCO Member States and NGOs that have official partnerships with UNESCO (UNESCO World Herit-age Centre 2018). Nominations for the 2019 Prize will be accepted between 30 November 2018 and 30 April 2019, and further details of the Prize, including the nomination forms, are available at http://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscapesprize.

6. For landscape civilisation and the origins of the land-scape wording discourses both in Europe and in China, see (Berque 1995).

7. An analysis yields the following keywords (in alpha-betic order): Artistic; Architectural; Aesthetic; Belief; Buddhist; Culture; Community; Confucian; Cultural development; Economic; Harmony between man and nature/environment/landscape; Historic; Humanity; Interchange of values/influences/ideas/cultures; Inte-gration of cultures; Interaction of natural beauty and culture; Islamic; Nature; Pilgrimage; Philosophical; Political; Religious; Ritual; Sacred; Shintoism; Spiritu-al; Symbolic; Social; Settlement; Tradition; Territory; Trade and Workmanship.

8. The Yamato Declaration on Integrated Approaches for Safeguarding Tangible and Intangible Cultural Herit-age was an outcome of a meeting held in Nara, Japan, in October 2004, to mark the 10th anniversary of the Nara Document on Authenticity and the 40th anniver-sary of the Venice Charter. This meeting was organised by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunka-cho), ACCU (the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO), the Nara Prefecture and Nara City, and the UNESCO Division of Cultural Heritage. http://unes-doc.unesco.org/images/0013/001376/137634e.pdf

9. The international symposium and workshop ‘Agricul-tural landscapes’, held in September 2016 at Tsukuba University, recalled the discussions and debates of the 2001 Wakayama Conference and the UNESCO The-matic Expert Meeting on Asia-Pacific Sacred Moun-tains, with a renewed vision and more sacred moun-tains of Asia and the Pacific Region inscribed in the World Heritage List, especially with more comprehen-sive work done towards the recognition of the values of cultural landscapes, and especially, the cultural and spiritual values in nature as tools for the conserva-tion of our cultural and natural heritage. Organised by Tsukuba University in 2017, the workshop ‘Sacred Landscapes’ focused on this complex type of heritage that represents the inextricable relationship between culture and nature, tangible and intangible heritages. Japan, a country characterised by the importance of its sacred landscapes, and especially mountains, has a lot to offer when it comes to exploring these interlinkages. On this occasion, a number of sacred places in Asia and the Pacific presented an overview of their situation and reviewed their conservation needs.

10. Recommendation Concerning the Safeguarding of Beauty and Character of Landscapes and Sites (1962): This was one of the earliest recommendations on land-scapes and covered ‘the preservation and, where pos-sible, the restoration of the aspect of natural, rural and


urban landscapes and sites, whether natural or man-made, which have a cultural or aesthetic interest or form typical natural surroundings’. (Article I). Recommendation concerning the Safeguarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas (1976): This Recommendation recognises the importance of the setting—buildings, spatial elements, and surroundings make up historic areas. The document notes that the destruction of historic areas can lead to economic loss and social disturbance. It calls for historic areas to be protected from the damage that can result from insen-sitive changes that damage authenticity.Recommendation concerning the Protection, at Na-tional Level, of the Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972): This Recommendation was prepared in paral-lel to the World Heritage Convention (1972) to en-hance conservation at the national level. A number of global declarations may also be relevant, such as the Nachitoches (2004) and the Xi’an Declaration of the ICOMOS General Assembly (2005), which deals spe-cifically with heritage landscapes and the setting of sites (Michell, Rössler and Tricaud 2009, 27–29).UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL, 2011): ‘Recognising, the dynamic nature of living cities, Noting, however, that rapid and frequently uncontrolled development is transform-ing urban areas and their settings, which may cause fragmentation and deterioration to urban heritage with deep impacts on community values, throughout the world. Considering, therefore, that in to support the protection of natural and cultural heritage, em-phasis needs to be put on the integration of historic urban area conservation, management and planning strategies into local development processes and urban planning, such as, contemporary architecture and in-frastructure development, for which the application of a landscape approach would help maintain urban iden-tity.’ Full text available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/hul

11. Full text of the European Landscape Convention avail-able at http://conventions.coe.int.

12. To address the loss of historical landscapes, along with the rapidly decreasing number of historical build-ings, the Japanese Government supports develop-ment efforts through the Law on Historical Urban Development, with the aim of passing on the histori-cal landscape to next generations, as a joint effort of the administrations for cultural properties and urban planning. This Japanese National Law on the Mainte-nance and Improvement of Historical Landscape in a

Community (known as the Law on Historical Urban Development) was promulgated on 23 May 2008 and came into force on 4 November 2008. This law is under the co-jurisdiction of the Japanese Ministry of Educa-tion, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Agency for Cultural Affairs), the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Land, In-frastructure, Transport and Tourism (see http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/policy/cultural_properties/law_landscape).

13. It is important to make reference to ‘Although an intel-lectual awareness of the concept of cultural landscapes evolved in the 19th century, cultural landscape plan-ning and management is a relatively new professional field of land use and site management. There is now a need and an opportunity, to share experiences from different parts of the world in managing diverse cul-tural landscapes, as typified by the range of landscapes to be found within existing World Heritage sites. There is also a need, and an opportunity, to encourage in-novation and creativity in management approaches. Managing cultural landscapes requires many issues to be addressed, so an interdisciplinary approach is needed that covers history, art, geography, architecture and landscape architecture, archaeology, anthropol-ogy, legal studies, ecological sciences, social sciences, including town planning, communication and market-ing, sociology, financial management, interpretation, training and education, as well as the various uses of landscape, such as agriculture, forestry, industry or tourism’ (Michell, Rössler and Tricaud 2009, 6).

14. The World Heritage Tentative List of Bhutan was first submitted by the Bhutanese authorities on 8 March 2012. It comprises four cultural sites: Ancient Ruin of Drukgyel Dzong; Dzongs: the centre of temporal and religious authorities (Punakha Dzong, Wangdue Phodrang Dzong, Paro Dzong, Trongsa Dzong and Dagana Dzong); Sacred Sites associated with Phajo Drugom Zhigpo and his descendants; Tamzhing Mon-astery): three natural sites (Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctu-ary; Jigme Dorji National Park; Royal Manas National Park); and one mixed site: Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary. See: https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/state=bt

15. Four annual workshops have been organised since 2014: Bhutan 2014 Workshop and Forum ‘Cultural Landscape—Its Interpretation and Ways to Enhance the Safeguarding of Cultural Landscape in Bhutan’, 7–19 August 2014, Paro and Thimphu, Bhutan. 2015 Workshop on cultural landscape of Bhutan, 21 July–9


August 2015, Haa and Thimphu. 2016 International Workshop on Cultural Landscape and Sustaining its Significance – Bhutan, 11 July–3 August 2016, Paro and Thimphu. 2017 International Workshop for Cul-tural Landscape and Sustaining its Significance – Bhutan 2017, 22–27 October 2017, Thimphu.

16. Bhutan’s unique development philosophy which has guided the nation to achieve a harmonious balance be-tween material well-being and the spiritual, emotional and cultural needs of the society.

17. Draft Cultural Heritage Bill of Bhutan, available at http://www.departmentofculture.gov.bt/en/wp-con-tent/uploads/2016/10/Cultural-Heritage-Bill-of-Bhu-tan-ver.-2016AUGenglish.pdf.

18. See the Statement of OUV for the World Heritage property ‘Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley’ (Afghanistan) here: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/208.

19. UNESCO coordinated the 14 meetings of the Bami-yan Expert Working Group since 2002. Since the de-struction of the Buddha statues, international agencies have joined together in an emergency effort to safe-guard the remains of this invaluable Afghan heritage. They include the small Buddha and the great Buddha, dating back to 507 AD and 551 AD respectively, and the mural paintings dating back to the 5th and early 9th century AD. Thanks to generous grants from the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust for the Preservation of the World Cultural Heritage, together with other inter-national donors, UNESCO has undertaken major pro-jects and activities for the Preservation of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bami-yan Valley. Substantial progress has been made, leading to a considerable improvement of the state of preserva-tion of the Bamiyan site, the long-term consolidation of the site, the increase in national capacities for the conservation of cultural heritage, and the creation of a basis for the inception of cultural tourism in Bami-yan. Aware of the potential for post-conflict situations to foster dialogue, reconciliation, social stability and reconstruction, UNESCO carries out peace-building actions in Afghanistan, and notably in Bamiyan, with a view to contributing to the construction of a common future for communities that have suffered from civil strife.

20. Roland Lin was the Project Officer in charge of managing the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust project for the preservation of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley at the

UNESCO World Heritage Centre, from late 2007 to May 2015.

21. While these plans exist, more capacity-building work is required to empower the institutions, implement the legal framework, provide training and raise aware-ness. The UNESCO Office in Kabul, in coordination with the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Regional authorities of Bamiyan, has made significant contributions to these efforts. Nevertheless, the imple-mentation of the Master Plans at the local and regional authority levels, and particularly the land use and planning control mechanisms, is currently an impor-tant challenge. It will be necessary to guarantee that all building permits are issued based on the Master Plan, and that their implementation is properly monitored by municipal inspectors and/or polices offers (Lin, Bruno and Jokilehto 2011).

22. UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Safe-guarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas (1976), Article 3.

23. Available at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/general-and-regional-histories/history-of-civilizations-of-central-asia/

24. May 2009 in Xi’an, China; May 2011 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan; September 2012 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; and November 2015 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

25. The cultural World Heritage property ‘Silk Roads: The Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor’, inscribed in 2014, is an extensive, 5,000 km section of the Silk Roads network stretching from Chang’an/Luoyang, the central capital of China in the Han and Tang dynasties, to the Zhetysu region of Central Asia. It links two of the great power centres that drove the Silk Roads trade. This nomination was put forward by China (with 22 component sites), Kazakhstan (with 8 component sites) and Kyrgyzstan (with 3 compo-nent sites), covering 42,668.16 ha with a buffer zone of 189,963.1 ha, as shown on the Figure 5 above. The 33 components include capital cities and palace complexes of various empires and Khan kingdoms, trading settlements, Buddhist cave temples, ancient paths, posthouses, passes, beacon towers, sections of the Great Wall, fortifications, tombs and religious buildings. The Tianshan corridor encompassed a complex network of trade routes extending to some 8,700 km that developed to link Chang’an in central China with the heartland of Central Asia between the 2nd century BC and 1st century AD, when long-distance trade in high-value goods, particularly silk,


started to expand between the Chinese and Roman Empires. It flourished between the 6th and 14th century AD and remained in use as a major trade route until the 16th century. The extremes of geography along the routes graphically illustrate the challenges of this long-distance trade. Falling to 154 m below sea level and rising to 7,400 m above sea level, the routes touch great rivers, alpine lakes, crusty salt flats, vast deserts, snow-capped mountains and ‘fecund’ prairies. The climate varies from extreme drought to semi-humid, while vegetation covers temperate forests, temperate deserts, temperate steppes, alpine steppes and oases. More information at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1442.

26. Documentary evidence suggests that the foundation of the mediation centre at Taktsang Palphug Monastery dates back to the 8th century AD, while the foundation of Choedrak Monastery has been dated to the 12th cen-tury and that of Phajoding monastery to the 13th cen-tury.

27. See the Advisory Body Evaluation of the nomina-tion carried out by ICOMOS, available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1442/documents.

28. The construction of the proposed Birlik-Almalyk-Kazstroy-Ryskulov-Ak-Bulak road and the associated bridge has inflicted serious damage on the historic structures and archaeological layers of the Talgar site and its overall morphology. The site has also suffered from reconstruction work and illegal, uncontrolled resi-dential developments near its boundaries. All of this im-plies that the state of conservation of the site has dete-riorated sharply since its inscription in 2014, despite the existing national legal protection for both the compo-nent site and its buffer zone. The similar roads construc-tion have already been carried out at Aktobe and Kulan, causing significant damage to the sites, and that Kaya-lyk, Akyrtas and Kostobe are threatened by planned or ongoing road construction. There is also deep concern that in all component sites in Kazakhstan except Kara-mergen, threats arising from urban development (e.g. administrative and sporting centres, industrial utilities and waste landfill sites) impact adversely on the per-ception of the sites in relation to the Silk Roads and the beauty of their settings. See 2017 State of Conservation Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/3643.

29. Further literature to be found in the following: Kari, S. and M. Rössler. 2017. “A World Heritage Perspective

on Culture and Nature—Beyond a Shared Platform.” The George Wright Forum 34 (2): 134–141. http://www.georgewright.org/node/15366. Rössler, M. 1993. “Conserving Outstanding Cultural Landscapes.” The World Heritage Newsletter June: 14–15. Rössler, M. 1993. “Protecting Outstanding Cultural Landscapes.” The World Heritage Newsletter December: 15. Rössler, M. “World Heritage Cultural Landscapes: A UNESCO Flagship Programme 1992–2006.” Landscape Research 31 4: 333–353. Rössler, M., and H. Cleere. 2001. “Con-necting Nature and Culture.” World Conservation: The IUCN Bulletin 2 (Special Issue: Vision and Reality - The World Heritage Convention in Action) (2001): 17. Rössler, M., and K. Manz. “World Heritage Cul-tural Landscapes.” IFLA Newsletter 81: 3–4. Rössler, M., R. Lin, and A. Nakamura. “For the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes: UNESCO-Greece Melina Mercouri International Prize.” Dwelling on Earth - A Magazine of Geoarchitecture 46/47: 20–23.

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Documents

Cultural Landscape in World Heritage Conservation and ... · the cultural landscape, especially where the associative values of the landscape reside within those communities. Although